How Religion Drives People Away From Church, But Not From God

Josh Packard is the Director of The Dechurched Project and is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Northern Colorado. He is a well-published author of numerous academic articles, reviews and scholarly presentations. He teaches and conducts research in the areas of religion, research methods and community health. He is also Co-Director of the Social…

STUCK is a project by sociologists Josh Packard, Ph.D. and Todd Ferguson aimed at understanding the experiences of pastors and other religious professionals who feel they are stuck in their jobs despite a strong desire to be Done with institutional religion. Increasingly, we have been hearing from pastors who tell us that if it were not…

As millions of church members fall into inactivity each year, they’ve probably also started skipping church on Sunday. We need answers—not statistics. We need to understand and hear from people who are leaving church so we can find a way to turn around the trend. This book uses in-depth sociological research to get to the heart…

A church is a gathering, not a building. It is inherently a collective effort of people explore and live out their faith. It might take the form of a service with a standard liturgy, but it may also simply be a regular meeting of friends for a meal. In 2017, with the assistance of a grant…

Organized religion has does a poor job of understanding, cultivating and appreciating the arts as a connection to faith. At best, churches tend to use art to illustrate the points made in a sermon or Bible story. At its core, good art has the ability to raise questions and help people to think about things in…